Ellie's 4 yr. stats....

I took Ellie to the dreaded 4 yr. appointment last week and she endured her 4 shots. They were not to bad and she was really brave. She really enjoyed the sticker and band-aids she received.
Her weight was 28 lbs. (0-5%)
Height was 10-25%

She sure is a big girl.....I'm thinking she might hit 35 by Kindergarten (maybe)! It is a really good thing she will start when she is 6.

Life with two...

Ellie has been quite the traveler this summer. She went to my parents house for 2 weeks and this week she got to go to Mike's parents house for a week. She loves every minute of it and there is no homesickness from her. She loves the attention and all the fun things she has gotten to do. There is quite a bit more you can do with one 4 yr. old than a 4 yr. old, 2 1/2 yr. old, and 2 month old!
Anna has gotten to have a pretty fun week as well. I've loved this one on one time with her. I forget how sweet my girls can be when they are alone. They are sweet together sometimes, but we have lots of fights and arguments over sharing etc... during our day. I don't think I've had to really discipline Anna all week and it has been so nice. She sure does miss her sister so I know it will be nice for them to play together when Ellie returns tomorrow! Mimi has done so many fun things with Ellie like swimming at the indoor pool, museums, story time, cupcakes, ice cream man, book store, books, singing songs in the car, seeing relatives, and open gym at a gymnastics place. I am so thankful for our sweet grandparents and for the mini-break I've gotten this week! Yes, when you have 3 children when you only have 2 it is a significant change!

Anna and I have been working on P.T. . I've kind of approached it with a laid-back approach and she is doing great. When we are at home she is not in a diaper and when we go out I make her wear one. She's done it a couple of times unprompted and had just a few accidents. I'm so proud of her!
Today, we went with our playgroup to a children's museum. She had a really good time and enjoyed the "farm" area the most. It was kind of our end of the summer activity for the kids. Next week lots of activities start back. Anna's dream occurred this week when I registered her for ballet class at our city rec center. She pretty much requests to be in ballet attire all day long. I told her she had to be brave and not cry when she went to the class by herself. She told me "mommy, I be happy and not cry". We will see on Tuesday when her class starts.
Anyways, I'm excited to see my sweet Ellie tomorrow, but am so glad she's gotten to have so much fun!

Miss Mary.....

When we were in FL with my family we did the traditional family pictures on the beach. 296 pictures to be exact!! I am so glad we were able to capture Mary in her newborn phase. There are so many other good ones of the girls that we are not quite sure what we are going to do with all of them yet. We had to be at the beach by 6:30 A.M. that was sure fun, but the morning time ended up being great cause it wasn't to hot and there were no bugs!

Mary is now 10 weeks old and is precious. I was wondering how I would even have time to enjoy her, but I must say on the third baby I think you realize the baby time is so short. I have loved having a "baby" in the house and it just so happens that she is pretty easy!

It seems like each week she would add another hour to how long she sleeps at night. This past week we've had quite a few 10-11 hour stretches. She loves her crib and does not love her car seat so we seem to try and take most naps at home. Ellie is still very much in love with her. I thought maybe it was a phase, but she is still very into her. They are actually sharing a room at night since Anna crawled out of the crib and we only have one twin bed in Ellie's old room.

Mary weighed 9 lb. 11 0z. at her two month appointment so she is a little bigger than the other girls at that point. We will see if she starts to slow down like they did. Ellie goes to her 4 yr. apptmt. tomorrow. It will be interesting how that goes. I haven't told her anything about it cause I don't want her to get upset before we have to get there!!

Mike has been at "Lake Day" with the staff from Watermark. He said it was so fun. They go away for a day once a year to just play at the lake and go to someone's lake house. We stop each other often and remember how blessed we are to serve at Watermark. It is one incredible place to be for so many reasons!

Ellie's FOUR!

Sweet Sisters

Ellie and her Backyardigans Cake

Mike got to hold Mary all night; a HUGE help!

Ava, Mary, and Milia; all 3 weeks apart!

Big Sisters and Little Sisters

What was I thinking.....?

Well, I think after having Mary and currently with three kids under three I might have lost a few brain cells. So on Friday night.... I planned a date for Mike and I which we were both so excited about... I got some friends to watch the girls and we had a nice gift card to a fancy restaurant! Our entire date was going to be free which is rare. I planned our day so that it would be Mary's sleepy time and it was a 20 minute drive to get there so I figured she would fall asleep in the car seat. We didn't know to much about the place, but just that it was really nice as in our gift card was for $100. We get there and she is asleep until we get her out of the car. She is wide awake.... Normally, when she wakes up it is time to eat so I figure I will nurse her in the bathroom. We open the door to the restaurant. It is really small, dark, fancy, and for sure we did not see any car seats! Mike assures me she will go back to sleep and it will be okay. However, I get really nervous. I go to the bathroom which happens to be a one stall bathroom. I lock the door and nurse her with people knocking on the door. I hurry and start to get really nervous cause after she eats the last place she wants to go is her car seat. Mike orders for us while I'm in the bathroom. I put Mary in the car seat with the paci and she is okay for about 3 minutes. We then take turns holding her while many people are looking at us thinking "can't you get a sitter"? They just didn't know that my sweet Mary will only take about 1 ounce from a bottle and doesn't like it to much. We each take turns holding her and she starts to get fussy which at a loud restaurant would have been fine, but not while people are trying to enjoy their anniversary dinners etc.... So I get my food to go and go outside with her. I really have no idea why I didn't think more about taking her there!!! We ended up going to Barnes and Noble to relax after that stressful event. It was a moment I never want to experience again and hope I think a little more clearly someday soon!!!